The Function of Skepticism in Part I of Don Quijote - H-Net

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118 Daniel Lorca Cervantes Finally, the reason stating why the work was written contains an explicit reference against authority: “esta vuestra escritura no mira a más que a deshacer la autoridad y cabida que en el mundo y en el vulgo tienen los libros de caballerías,…” (18). 4 The constant undermining of and preoccupation with authority continues in Chapter Nine. In that chapter we learn that we do not know when the story of Don Quijote was written because it could be old or not. It could be ancient because most of it was missing, and this unfortunate event is explained using time, who is “devorador y consumidor de todas las cosas” (100), but it could also be modern because a partial manuscript was found next to texts that were written recently, such as for example “Desengaño de cellos y Ninfas y Pastores de Henares” (101). We do not know its provenance either, because the one selling it is a boy in the street. We do not speak the original language of the found manuscript because it is in Arabic (101-2). 5 Furthermore, the person claiming authorship is an Arabic historian named Cide Hamete Benengeli: “Historia de Don Quijote de la Mancha, escrita por Cide Hamete Benengeli, historiador 4 Carmen Escudero’s view indicates indirectly that Cervantes’s technique of not following the friend’s recommendations but merely reporting them, produces a skeptical attitude on the reader: “En lugar de ofrecer un resultado, un prólogo perfecto (en el sentido de ya concluso), Cervantes ofrece el proceso mismo de la confección de ese prólogo, e intenta hacer al lector confidente de sus dudas, con lo que el destinatario quedará definitivamente implicado en la obra al sentirse incluso colaborador de ella” (184). Fajardo’s view also points to skepticism: “The first author does not say that he undertook to follow his friend’s advice but that his friend’s words left an imprint in him… Thus, he adopts his friend’s statement as worthy of imitation because it has been voided of authoritative context” (11).One of the basis of skepticism is to embrace doubt (Escudero) and reject authority (Fajardo) as a method of discovery, and therefore their conclusions are consistent with skepticism. For example, Francisco Sánchez was a well known skeptic during the period, and he writes in the prologue to Que nada se sabe: “Tú, lector desconocido, quienquiera que seas, con tal que tuvieres la misma condición y temperamento que yo; tú, que dudaste muchas veces, en lo secreto de tu alma, sobre la naturaleza de las cosas, ven ahora a dudar conmigo; ejercitemos juntos nuestros ingenios y facultades; séanos a los dos libre el juicio, pero no irracional” (1923, xvii). He also writes: “Tampoco me pidas autoridades ni falsos acatamientos a la opinión ajena” (xx). 5 Caroll Johnson has shown that “of the eighteen Castilian romances of chivalry published between 1508 and 1589, thirteen purport to have been written originally in Greek, and one each in Latin, English, an unspecified foreign language, and Arabic” (2007, 180). Therefore, the story of don Quijote is consistent with this aspect of the tradition; however, Caroll Johnson’s finding does not change the notion that the readers of the story of Don Quijote do not understand Arabic. We do not read the “original” (Arabic), but a “translation” (Castillian).
Volume 30.2 (2010) The Function of Skepticism 119 arábigo”(102), and the authority of this historian is undermined because the text specifies that all Arabs are liars: “su autor [es] arábigo, siendo muy propio de los de aquella nación ser mentirosos” (103). 6 Finally, we do not know who translated it from Arabic to Castilian because the translator is another unknown Arab (another liar, according to the text): “La suerte me deparό [un Morisco aljamiado]” (102) and “roguéle me volviese aquellos cartapacios . . . en lengua castellana;” therefore, when the text says that “la traducciόn, comenzaba desta manera” (104), we have been led to believe that we are reading a text written by an Arab historian, and we are told that Arabs are liars. This unreliable text is then translated by a Morisco, and we don’t know if it is truly a faithful translation. We are also led to believe that we do not know its provenance, because the one selling it is a boy in the street. Finally, we don’t know if the text is ancient or modern, but later we learn it must be modern given the dates in the text. In short, we are led to believe that the text has no authority whatsoever. The rejection of authority is therefore present in four key elements of the text: (1) it is associated with the explicit justification of the text (i.e., to undermine the authority of the Romances of Chivalry); (2) it is used to construct the greater part of the prologue by way of mocking the authorities; (3) the text says of itself that it does not need any authority; (4) and finally, given the information in Chapter Nine, the text does not have authority. To sum up, Cervantes took such great care in making sure that the story of Don Quijote does not depend on authority, that even his attack against the authority of the Romances of Chivalry comes from a text that does not have authority (or so we are led to believe). This attitude is consistent with skeptical doctrine. We need to recall that Sextus Empiricus argued against the authorities of his time calling them “dogmatics”, and that his works were rediscovered and influential during the Renaissance. For Sextus Empiricus, truth is obtained by way of argument and direct observation, and not because the one who said 6 The authority of Cide Hamete is undermined by two additional factors which may not be as immediately obvious as the one mentioned in the main body of the text: no one knows what else he has written, and as mentioned by Martín the Riquer in his edition of Don Quijote (2002), the name is invented, common and ironic: “Nombre inventado, pero en auténtico árabe e irónico: cide, señor, Hamete, el nombre árabe Hamid, y Benengeli, aberenjenado. Hamete era un nombre muy corriente entre moriscos” (102, n.11).
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